47 leaders united to head off terrorists
Source: Agencies |
April 14, 2010, Wednesday
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LEADERS of 47 countries, including President Hu Jintao, are assembled in Washington DC to recharge efforts to keep nuclear material out of terrorist hands.
United States President Barack Obama opened the Nuclear Security Summit yesterday by declaring that the risk of a terrorism attack had increased.
In his opening address, Obama said the danger came not from an enemy nation but from terrorists, and was on the rise despite the end of the Cold War - a new nuclear reality he described as a "cruel irony of history."
"The risk of a nuclear attack has gone up," Obama said, as terrorist organizations like al-Qaida tried to get their hands on nuclear material.
He called the conference with the goal of locking down all nuclear material worldwide in four years.
European Union President Herman van Rompuy called on all countries to sign and ratify the convention on the 1980 Physical Protection of Nuclear Material, which was amended in 2005 to require states to protect such material even when not in transit.
'Devastating'
"Nuclear terrorism represents a most serious threat to international security with potentially devastating consequences to our societies," Van Rompuy said.
Obama and South Korean President Lee Myung-bak also announced that Seoul would host the next conference of this kind in two years.
Lee said North Korean leader Kim Jong Il would not get an invitation until the country gave up its nuclear weapons ambitions.
North Korea was not invited to the Washington conference.
After Hu's meeting with Obama on Monday, White House National Security Aide Jeff Bader said Iran was a major topic of discussion at the 90-minute session.
Crime gangs
"They're prepared to work with us," Bader said, interpreting that willingness as "another sign of international unity on this issue."
While the US worries about Iran's nuclear program, Turkey has its own concerns about Israel.
Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's prime minister, opted not to attend the summit.
Insiders said he had expected Turkey and Egypt to use the conference as a platform to challenge him over his country's widely assumed nuclear arsenal, which the Jewish state has never acknowledged.
The focus of the summit is the tons of plutonium and highly enriched uranium believed to be insufficiently protected from international criminal gangs and terrorist organizations.
The summit is due to end this morning (Beijing time) with a joint declaration to guide future work toward locking away and cleansing the globe of material still too easily accessible to terrorists.
United States President Barack Obama opened the Nuclear Security Summit yesterday by declaring that the risk of a terrorism attack had increased.
In his opening address, Obama said the danger came not from an enemy nation but from terrorists, and was on the rise despite the end of the Cold War - a new nuclear reality he described as a "cruel irony of history."
"The risk of a nuclear attack has gone up," Obama said, as terrorist organizations like al-Qaida tried to get their hands on nuclear material.
He called the conference with the goal of locking down all nuclear material worldwide in four years.
European Union President Herman van Rompuy called on all countries to sign and ratify the convention on the 1980 Physical Protection of Nuclear Material, which was amended in 2005 to require states to protect such material even when not in transit.
'Devastating'
"Nuclear terrorism represents a most serious threat to international security with potentially devastating consequences to our societies," Van Rompuy said.
Obama and South Korean President Lee Myung-bak also announced that Seoul would host the next conference of this kind in two years.
Lee said North Korean leader Kim Jong Il would not get an invitation until the country gave up its nuclear weapons ambitions.
North Korea was not invited to the Washington conference.
After Hu's meeting with Obama on Monday, White House National Security Aide Jeff Bader said Iran was a major topic of discussion at the 90-minute session.
Crime gangs
"They're prepared to work with us," Bader said, interpreting that willingness as "another sign of international unity on this issue."
While the US worries about Iran's nuclear program, Turkey has its own concerns about Israel.
Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's prime minister, opted not to attend the summit.
Insiders said he had expected Turkey and Egypt to use the conference as a platform to challenge him over his country's widely assumed nuclear arsenal, which the Jewish state has never acknowledged.
The focus of the summit is the tons of plutonium and highly enriched uranium believed to be insufficiently protected from international criminal gangs and terrorist organizations.
The summit is due to end this morning (Beijing time) with a joint declaration to guide future work toward locking away and cleansing the globe of material still too easily accessible to terrorists.
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